#so that's another thing that the Tuath Dé helped them out with

[soulsxng]

Laisren Cynwrig Ris (Oleander Angharad Fiachrae Mac Briar), life until current day, pt 2

Displacement didn't suit the once proud royal knight of the Unseelie, and as Laisren and Bleddyn spent what felt like ages on the run, it became more and more evident that the wounds that Laisren had sustained from the battle had lessened his ability by a fair amount. Though he could still pull his weight for the most part, Bleddyn was rather obviously the protector of the pair, while Laisren had frustratingly become the protected.

If they weren't on the move, Laisren was training. Trying to gain back the prowess that he had lost, even if it often left him exhausted. Despite Bleddyn urging him to slow down, to get his rest, and be more cautious, Laisren's focus remained laser focused on one thing, and one thing alone.

Power. The power to take revenge for what had been done to him.

Day by day though, he instead found himself becoming weaker and weaker. Bogged down by the exhaustion and overexertion that he'd inflicted upon himself.

It took Bleddyn getting hurt while protecting him (again.) for him to realize that this wasn't something that he could rush. That along with focus, he would need patience to see this through...and it was around that time, that the pair was found and taken in by the Tuatha Dé Danann of the Otherworlds.

To Bleddyn's relief, it seemed to do Laisren a world of good. The two became personal knights to the Tuatha Dé Danann early on, and this allowed Laisren a number of new and different things to take his mind away from the grief in his heart. Though he was (and still is) apprehensive, he was able to make friends that have lasted through their time in their new home. Learn about new things, and see new places. He found people that he admired and looked up to (worryingly to Bleddyn, it seemed that rulers and gods were typically the ones that would become the object of said admiration), and found some that he came to consider rivals, of sorts.

Slowly but surely, Laisren began to regain the shine that he'd had before. Even more-so than he had in the Unseelie, he was thriving.

Thought that doesn't mean that the pain is forgotten. Even if he's able to find enjoyment in things again, Laisren doubts that his true goal will ever change.

Little by little, step by step, he would get closer to achieving it. By any means necessary. He would get revenge for his family. And after everything that Bleddyn had done for him-- everything he had sacrificed-- Laisren couldn't let him do this for him, too. Bleddyn would never be allowed to give his life for Laisren, on top of it all.

If that means that he has to see things through by himself, then so be it.

[margridarnauds]

3, 4, 12, and 27 for any Celtic or Arthurian ship (go wild with 'em!)

It is a fact universally acknowledged that I am A Soft Bitch. Also it has been SO LONG since I’ve dipped my toes into Arthuriana.  

(Sorry it took me so long; I had a Fourth of July dinner to go to and then afterwards I was so exhausted by people asking me about the drinking opportunities available in Ireland because obviously that’s why I’ve spent five years of my life dedicated to the field, amiright? + getting stung by fire ants because fuck Florida that I had to take a long freaking nap.) 

3. Who is the most romantic?

Bres/Sreng

I think that they actually both are, it’s just...how they express it. 

Sreng tends to be slightly blunter as far as he feels, he tends to show his affection for Bres via being a rock for him when he needs it most. He helps Bres with the children, he distracts him when the pressures of being with the Fomorians and the diplomatic hot potato get to be too much for him, he’s the one who Bres vents to when his father is being difficult on something, he tries to find ways to visit Bres whenever he can. He was the one in the tent with Bres when the news about Ruadan’s death came, he was the one who held Bres throughout the night as he SOBBED into Sreng’s last good cloak. 

Bres on the other hand is slightly less big on ACTIONS; it would be really, really easy for an outside observer to think that he’s less invested in the relationship. The truth is that he’s just as invested as Sreng is, if not more. He just tends to show it via, for example, curling up with Sreng’s cloak when he’s not there or being the one to take his hand when they’re in bed together, running his fingers along Sreng’s knuckles. 

Bres’ private space is very important to him, it’s part of why the Tuatha dé and he never really CLICKED, because the king of the Tuatha dé needed to be...well...an extrovert, someone who can host lavish feasts, someone who can humor everyone in the hall while maintaining the social order, and the longer that Bres stood in the kingship, the more he grew to despise everyone there. But Sreng is allowed IN there, he can go to Bres’ quarters with no problem, he can dine with Bres privately and Bres is perfectly at ease with him, he can share Bres’ living space to the extent that Bres tends to use him as a pillow. Also: Bres totally dotes on him and occasionally slips him a new gold neck-ring when he’s not looking. Because Sreng would be too proud for it normally but Bres can’t stand to see his decline. Which is big for Bres, given how we KNOW how stingy he was with the Tuatha dé. 

You know that if he’d won he would have totally spoiled Sreng. If that Fir Bolg wanted ANYTHING, he would have had it. It’s hard to use the term “consort” because the Medieval Irish were so BIG on marriage = children as a concept, but...Sreng would have been Bres’ nearest, dearest companion that he lavished attention on. Which would have rubbed salt on the Tuatha dé’s wounds even more. 

Mordred/Galahad 

Galahad. He has VERY high ideals of love and how it should be expressed, and so he’s constantly trying to court Mordred in the most courtly way he possibly can. Which is massively confusing to Mordred because he has no idea what to DO but...well...it’s nice. At least, once he realizes that Galahad id 100% serious. At first, he laughs about it with his brothers, but then as time goes on, he realizes that he LIKES it. (Namely when Galahad’s away on a quest at one point and suddenly Mordred doesn’t have that attention anymore.) Mordred is more the “I happened to find this by the side of the road, but don’t think that I LIKE you” type. 

4. Who can’t keep their hands to themselves?

Bres/Sreng

...Bres. Bres is just...Bres. He can’t keep his hands to himself and he will make bad jokes the entire time in his attempt to be smooth. He deeply enjoys trying to find excuses to touch Sreng whenever they are at a feast together. This drives Sreng absolutely batty since there’s really nothing that he can do to reciprocate when they’re in front of some of THE MOST POWERFUL FOMORIAN NOBILITY TO EXIST and Bres is behaving very casually, making pleasant conversation and Oh, Queen Cethlenn, is that a new silk dress? I hadn’t noticed it before while he raises his goblet at Sreng. Sreng always takes his revenge in the end, waiting until they have at least a sliver of privacy before pinning Bres against the nearest hard surface and kissing him absolutely senseless. Which was totally Bres’s intended purpose.

Mordred/Galahad

In general, Mordred, despite often seeming aloof. Mordred is very, very handsy with his boyfriend because, even though he won’t ADMIT it, the boy’s touch starved, and Galahad is endlessly compassionate when it comes to that. Though Galahad DID get tipsy once and was, as it turns out, a very affectionate drunk, which gave Mordred fuel to tease him for WEEKS. (And the rest of Camelot tbh. Given that we know that they are not above roasting someone given Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.) Galahad can’t enter the Great Hall without blushing for ages. Mordred tells him that his father’s done far, far worse in his time. 

12. What first changes when it starts getting serious?

It’s odd with them because their bond’s been intense since the first time they met. They just had one of those instant connections, so in some ways them finally going from friends to lovers...wasn’t THAT big of a step, because they always were serious. Their meeting is actually really, really unusual in terms of how two champions from opposite sides GENERALLY interact in-text, given that they both are on such good terms with one another and they STAY on good terms with one another even after everything happens. No, this did not feature in my undergrad Capstone in any way, what would give you that idea? 

I think that Bres is really, really surprised that Sreng stays by his side after their reunion. He puts on this very confident front, but privately, he puts a lot of his self identity on his looks. And when they went with Cairpre’s satire, that was a HUGE blow mentally and physically, even before it touches how it affects his kingship. He knew on some level that Sreng was interested in him, but they’d left things at a confusing place. So, he didn’t think that Sreng would keep an interest in him when his looks were marred, Sreng didn’t think that he had ANY interest in him...it’s a mess. And both of them still kind of think that the other’s going to change their mind at any given time even after they begin the process of clearing things up, not the least because neither one of them have really ever been in a place of stability in their lives. 

But then, it’s a month onwards, then it’s a year, then it’s two years, and both of them are still there, and it’s just like “Oh. This is a Thing” and there’s just this general feeling of security that starts to creep in. And, gradually, their lives just kind of naturally intersect. Both of them interact with one another regularly, both of them know each other’s families (regrettably, in Sreng’s case, given that he is the founding member of the Elatha Hate Club, even though he does love Bres’ children dearly), both of them have stuff over at the other one’s place. In the modern day, it would be painfully obvious that they were a couple, but since it IS this time, everyone else thinks They’re Just Good Friends, because that’s how good friends ARE at this point in time. Except for Lugh, who post-Cath Maige Tuired firmly believes that Bres is The Actual Devil and that Sreng and he have some sort of devious plan to take Ireland back. 

Mordred/Galahad

For once, they stop thinking about their respective destinies as much. 

Like, don’t get me wrong, in Galahad’s case in PARTICULAR, his eventual destiny is something that’s ALWAYS at the back of his mind, because he’s spent literally his ENTIRE CHILDHOOD being told that. We do not discuss the truly endless depth of my hatred for his mother and grandfather for THAT ONE + their treatment of Lancelot. 

And for Mordred, I think that on some level, there’s just this resignation that he’s going to be the villain, he’s going to kill Arthur one day, he’s going to be Evil™. He’s known that since he got the prophecy, and I tend to see him as having this “Then let me BE evil” moment after he murders the old priest and then Lancelot, the knight who he’d IDOLIZED and probably had a little bit of a crush on, tries to kill him. And that’s why he tends to see all the bad in Camelot, because it makes it that much easier to bring it all down. 

But, for a little while, there’s this period of time where they have the luxury of thinking about something outside of their fates, they can have a LIFE that’s theirs, without worrying about the future. It’s one of those things that they don’t even really NOTICE until it’s like “Wait, I haven’t thought about my tragic but inevitable death for a month now, where’s the time gone?” 

27. Why do their friends get annoyed with them?

Bres has FRIENDS? 

Alright, alright, that’s probably a little cruel, but...Well, he doesn’t really HAVE anyone. I tend to HC that Sreng’s brothers don’t really understand the relationship AT ALL and tend to view Bres as The Tuath Dé Who Shamelessly Seduced Their Brother (If you ask Bres, HE’LL say that it was the other way around, if you ask Sreng, he’ll just shrug because honestly to this day he has no idea how he scored Bres.)  

Tailtiu thinks that Sreng is essentially tying himself to a sinking ship. (Which...is she WRONG?) And Bres’ presence is basically a gigantic wedge between Sreng and Lugh being Bros™, which would obviously be Tailtiu’s endgame of choice. That, and Bres did. Kind of. Try to kill her former husband. Even though he had a Very, Very Good Reason for it at the time. Still. That has to sting a little. 

Elatha REALLY doesn’t like Sreng or the relationship, because he views it as a Distraction™ (that, and he doesn’t understand the appeal. If his son’s going to throw everything out on the line for someone, couldn’t it have been someone better, more attractive, more witty, less blunt? Someone that he could bend to his own ends), but he also knows that he has to tacitly allow it to continue, because he does NOT want to deal with the fallout. (Not even from Bres. Oh no, there’s a bigger threat to be considered. Eriu. Who is Very Happy That Her Boy’s Found Someone To Make Him Happy and won’t hear a bad word against Sreng, who she considers to be A Very Nice Boy. If she were a modern mom, she totally would be knitting Sreng a Christmas sweater while they speak and asking them when the wedding was even before either one of them had really THOUGHT of proposing.) 

Bríg does NOT like Sreng at all, not necessarily because of personal jealousy (she never really loved Bres, he never really loved her, even though there was a definite possibility that they could have loved one another in the early days), but because of the Nuada Incident. She doesn’t really understand why Bres would spend so much time with him when he’s The Enemy, and he’s a Fir Bolg so he’s inherently lesser than the Tuatha dé anyway. 

Bres’ brothers don’t really understand it either. Over 3000 years in and the Dagda STILL thinks that Bres’ problem is that he doesn’t get laid enough and that if Bres would just get away from That Fir Bolg... (If only he knew, if only he knew.)

Meanwhile, the Fomorian lords, sans Elatha, are more or less completely oblivious. Tethra might have a better idea than the others, but does he care? Nope. He’s not overly invested in this whole thing anyway. He’s got his own issues at home to take care of, thank you VERY much. He participates in the raids because he has to dole out the loot to his men the same as anyone else, but he’s not INVESTED in it. It’s a necessary part of maintaining his kingship, nothing more. Sreng isn’t overly fond of them because he considers them to be essentially a snakepit of intrigue and corruption that will stab the two of them in the back at their earliest opportunity and he’s not wrong for the most part, though the one thing I WILL emphasize is that it’s not because they’re Fomorians, it’s that they’re...well, medieval kings, but they have a decent enough working relationship because they both hate the Tuatha dé’s guts. 

Mordred/Galahad 

Agrap-Agravaine tends to be annoyed that his brother’s spending all his time with someone who’s such a goody two shoes. Mordred and he have always been the closest in terms of age and personality, and suddenly he’s no longer Mordred’s Favorite. 

I actually think that Morgause would like Galahad? She’s definitely very, very pro-her sons being happy in Le Morte d’Arthur and Good Mom Morgause is a hill that I’m willing to die on. Because fuck T.H White. I do think it would be a little strange, to say the least, given that obviously Galahad is staunchly religious whereas I don’t REALLY see Morgause having that same bent. Morgause just...lives her own life, regardless of what society says, and I think she would have some trouble understanding why her son would go for someone like that when he’s HIM. But I do think that for the most part, she would just be thrilled that Mordred has someone who he’s devoted to given that he’s REALLY not been OK since That One Quest With Lancelot. 

ANY of Galahad’s friends tend to be annoyed at Mordred simply for the fact that Mordred is...Mordred. He doesn’t have the best reputation for a REASON, and it’s very, very dissonance inducing to see the two of them constantly in one another’s presence, even though they try to frame it in terms of Mordred being a charity case of Galahad's.

And Lancelot obviously hates Mordred because he knows of The Prophecy™. He is NOT pleased by this turn of events, and it goes way beyond “annoyance.”